In general, an outside handle for a vehicle door is to open and close the vehicle door, and an inside handle is mounted at an inner side of the vehicle door. A door latch assembly, which locks or releases by a remote controller, a key, and the like, is installed in a door panel.
When a user presses a button on the remote controller to open a door, a solenoid of a door latch receives a signal from the remote controller and moves in an opening direction of the door. Then, the door latch is released, and the user pulls an outside vehicle door handle in the opening direction to open a vehicle door.
In a case of a side collision of a vehicle, an inertia force applied to the outside handle may lift the outside handle in the opening direction, such that the door may open, which insecure a passenger. Thus, the door needs to be prevented from opening at the side collision.
Hereinafter, an existing apparatus for preventing a door from opening at a side collision and operations thereof will be described.
FIGS. 1 and 2 are perspective views showing an existing apparatus for preventing a door from opening, and FIGS. 3 and 4 are views operations of an apparatus for preventing a door from opening.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, the apparatus for preventing a door from opening includes an outside handle 10 and an outside handle housing 20 (hereinafter, referred to as ‘a housing’).
The outside handle 10 is mounted to an outer side of the housing 20. A pulling lever 12 integrally is connected to the outside handle 10 and extends into the housing 20.
The housing 20 further includes a handle lever 30 pivoting by a return spring 38 to return the outside handle 10 to an original position when the outside handle 30 is pulled.
Here, a locking lever 32 connected with an outer surface of the pulling lever 12 protrudes on the top of the handle lever 30. The handle lever 30 has a balance weight 34 at a lower side thereof to return the outside handle 10 to the original position when the outside handle 10 is pulled.
In addition, a release cable 36, which extends from a door latch assembly (not shown) for locking and releasing a door, is connected to a front end of the handle lever 30.
Thus, the handle lever 30 pivots counterclockwise entirely as the pulling lever 12 pulls the locking lever 32 of the handle lever 30 when pulling the outside handle 10.
At this time, as a user further pulls the outside handle 10 by his/her hand to pull the release cable 36 which is fixed to the front end of the handle lever 30, the door is open. Simultaneously, the door latch assembly releases the locked door as the handle lever 30 pivots counterclockwise.
In general, the door may be open by an inertia force during side collision. That is, the door may be open at the side collision as the outside handle 10 is pulled in an opening direction by which the inertia force is applied to the outside handle 10.
The balance weight 34 prevents the door from opening primarily during the side collision.
As shown in FIG. 1, when a normal directional inertia is applied not only to the outside handle 10 (indicated by an arrow ‘A’ in FIG. 1) but to the balance weight 34 (indicated by an arrow ‘B’ in FIG. 1) during the side collision, the outside handle 10 is not pulled in the opening direction when the inertia force applied to the balance weight 34 is greater than the inertia force applied to the outside handle 10, thus preventing the door from opening.
However, when a reverse directional inertia force (in the direction opposite to the arrow ‘B’ in FIG. 1) is applied after the forward inertial force is applied to the balance weight 34 at the side collision, the handle lever 30 pivots counterclockwise entirely to pull the release cable 36 to open the door by the door releasing operation of the door latch assembly.
When a resilient force of the return spring 38, which surrounds a rotary shaft of the handle lever 30, increases, the reverse inertia force applied to the balance weight 34 may decrease. As the resilient force of the return spring 38 increases, an operative force when a user pulls the outside handle 10 remarkably increases at a normal door opening condition, user may find the operation inconvenient.
Thus, since there is weight and mass limitation on the balance weight 34, a blocking lever 40 is mounted to the housing 20 to further prevent the door from opening at the side collision.
The blocking lever 40 has a hinge end 42 (see FIG. 4) at one side pivotally mounted in the housing 10 by the return spring 38 and has a saw tooth-shaped stopper 44 at another side to restrain a locking step 14 formed on an end of the pulling lever 12 of the outside handle 10.
Referring to FIGS. 3 and 4, when the pulling lever 12 of the outside handle 10 is pulled out by a forward inertia force (indicated by the arrow “C” in FIG. 3), the blocking lever 40 pivots in the same direction due to the forward inertia force. Simultaneously, the stopper 44 of the blocking lever 40 retrains the locking step 14 at an end of the pulling lever 12 to prevent the outside handle 10 from being pulled in the opening direction and the door from opening.
However, when an outer panel of the door can be excessively deformed at the side collision, and outside handle 10 is offset from a normal operation path, the door opening prevention by the blocking lever 40 is not effective.